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All Love: A Biography of Ridley Herschell
by
Geoffrey Henderson
Jewish
believers in Jesus are frequently characterised by anti-missionaries as
being ignorant of Judaism. It would be impossible, the
anti-missionaries claim, for a Jew who was truly knowledgable in
Judaism to believe in Jesus. An Orthodox Jewish man stated, as we
concluded an all-night debate on Isaiah 53, that no Jew who understood
“one line of Gemara” would ever convert to Christianity.
Two hundred years ago,
in one of the most Orthodox Jewish communities in the world, a Jewish
child was born who would excel as a scholar familiar with every facet
of rabbinic religion but who would also become one of the most
colourful figures in nineteenth-century English Evangelicalism and a
founder of CWI.
Haim
Herschell was born in Strzelno, Poland in April 1807 to the
daughter-in-law of the town’s rabbi, Hillel Herschell. His earliest
ambition was to be a rabbi and,
along with the other boys of the town, Haim diligently studied the
Torah and the Mishnah and Gemara.*
Away from the
other-worldly insularity of the Polish Hassidic community, Haim was
quickly seduced by the urbane secularism of the German capital.
However, in another secular and sophisticated European capital he was
drawn back to the God of his fathers. Haim was living in Paris when,
poverty-stricken and miserable, feeling forsaken by God, he noticed
that an item he had bought was wrapped in the pages of a book. His
attention was drawn to the words, “Bienheureux ceux qui
sont dans l’affliction, car ils seront consoles”; “Blessed are they
that mourn, for they shall be comforted”. In France, the cradle of the
Enlightenment, the Bible had no more value than cheap wrapping paper,
but these words from Matthew’s Gospel would mark the beginning of a new
life for Haim Herschell, later to be Ridley Haim
Herschell. He would go on to become a national celebrity as well as a
Christian scholar, a preacher, a pastor, a missionary and a founder of
both the Evangelical Alliance and Christian Witness to Israel.
All Love has been a labour of
love for the author Geoffrey Henderson. His great-great-grandfather
came to faith through Herschell and they became good friends. The book
is a gripping and moving account of a relatively brief life lived with
courage, conviction, spiritual zeal, integrity and love. It is a
delight to read. Henderson has done British evangelicalism an
inestimable service by reviving the memory of a forgotten spiritual and
intellectual giant. I recommend it to all readers of the Herald.
Mike
Moore
*The
Mishna (Repetition) and Gemara (Completion) make up the 63 tractates of
Talmud (Teaching), a massive compendium of rabbinic discussions
pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history. (return)
All
Love
A biography of Ridley
Herschell
Geoffrey Henderson
HTS Media. 190 pages.
ISBN: 9780955530401
Copies may be ordered from
the CWI bookroom at £8.75 each
(including p&p
within the UK)
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